Stitches
by JolinarJackson
Summary: Part Three online: This was different, wasn't just a shag he picked up in a pub or a colleague he wanted to screw just because they were pretty and damn what they thought of each other. It was Ianto who took good care of him. And of his coat.
1. Coming Apart

**Coming Apart**

_Series: _Stitches

_Word Count: _~ 2.200

_Summary: _Jack looked at him steadily, let him see that he knew, that he was disappointed and angry and insulted. That she was really, really gone.

_Characters: _Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, Lisa Hallett

_Pairing: _Jack/Ianto (pre-slash), Ianto/Lisa Hallett (hinted)

_Rating: _R

_Spoiler: Cyberwoman _/ Doctor Who: _Parting Of The Ways, Army Of Ghosts, Doomsday_

_Setting: _sometime between _Day One_ and _Cyberwoman_

_Warnings: _Violence, description of character death

_Contains: _slight AU

_Author's Note: _Written for the torchwood_fest Winter Exchange. Rudika gave five prompts, I took three and made a series out of them. This is Part One for the prompt _For someone dressed so proper, Ianto is coming apart at the seams_.

_Beta:_ larsinger29, thank you!

_Disclaimer: _I'm not making money with this fanfic. The tv-show _Torchwood _and the characters appearing within it belong to their producers and creators. Any similarities to living or dead persons are purely coincidental and not intended.

xxx

It was shock – complete and utter shock – that froze Jack in the doorway of the small, moist room in the basement of the Hub.

And there, in the middle of the room, surrounded by a lamp, a chair and a small table with a picture on it: a conversion unit.

In his base.

And not only was there a conversion unit here but it also wasn't empty. A woman was strapped into it, looking like a half-finished version of the Cybermen who had burned Torchwood Tower to the ground and … he couldn't breathe and backed out of the room, slamming the door and taking a few steps back. Torchwood Tower. Only one of his team members had been there during the battle, had lost …

"_Girlfriend: Lisa Hallett."_

"_Deceased."_

Jack took a deep breath and leaned against the cold wall of the corridor. He stared at the wooden door, looking so plain and innocent. The dim lights flickered, reminding him of the reason he'd come here. One of the generators had suffered an overload and Tosh had tracked the problem to this sub-level, this room. Suddenly, Jack was glad that he'd been the one to come down here. If Ianto wasn't out to get dinner right now, he would have taken care of this. Jack was sure of that. Because the generators had been causing problems for months – since Ianto had started working here, actually – and Ianto had always been the one to take care of it.

In his long life, Jack had experienced a lot of things several times and he'd hardened himself against them. This form of betrayal, though, was something he'd experienced only once before.

_The TARDIS leaving ... leaving him behind._

He startled when a weak voice came from the other side of the door. "Ianto?"

Jack squeezed his eyes shut and straightened, squaring his shoulders. He had to do something before Ianto would be back and realize that something was wrong. He would take care of this and have dinner with the team and then wait until everyone but Ianto had left. And then they would have a talk.

"Ianto?"

Jack checked his Webley, suddenly glad he hadn't taken it off after the Weevil hunt this afternoon. He put one hand on the door, ready to push it open and closed his eyes for a second, allowing himself a moment to switch off his emotions. He'd become good at that during his time as an interrogator. He could get this done and lock his emotions away until later, until he was ready for them. When he was alone. A potential threat to the whole planet was here, in his base, relatively vulnerable – he had no time for emotions.

He pushed open the door and entered. The girl … Lisa looked at him with dark, scared eyes. "Who are you?" she asked, her voice trembling.

Jack stepped closer, glancing at the picture on the table – Ianto and Lisa in a park, happy and in love – and then focussed his attention on her. "The guy who's in charge around here."

"Captain Harkness."

He narrowed his eyes. "Ianto told you about me?"

She stared at him, her eyes wide and fearful. "He … he did. Where is he?"

"Getting dinner. At least he said he would. Can't trust him, though, ain't that right?"

Lisa sobbed. "Please, please don't hurt me. I'm not one of them, I can be healed. We were about to-"

"I don't fucking care." Her tears and fear pulled at his sympathy but he pushed it back down firmly. He took a closer look at the complicated life-support system hooked up to her and the conversion unit and then found the switch that connected everything to the Hub's electricity circuits.

"No," Lisa said, "please ..."

He switched the electricity off. She gasped, fighting for air. In the dim, flickering lights of the room, Jack watched her writhing on the unit, trying to escape. But she was too weak. Her breaths turned to wheezes, painful to listen to, and Jack allowed a bit of sympathy to escape. For the sake of the girl this being had once been. His grip around the Webley tightened.

Her face crumbled when she saw him approach. "Don't kill me."

"Very convincing," he said. "No wonder you've got Ianto wrapped around your little finger but that doesn't work for me. Lisa is long gone or at least locked away in her own mind, am I right? You're just using her body to rebuild the Cybermen army."

Her face turned to stone, defiance radiating from her eyes. "You will be the first to be deleted." All pretence was stripped away. Her voice sounded metallic and her eyes had lost every trace of fear.

"No," Jack answered and pointed his gun at her head, "you will."

He pulled the trigger.

xxx

After the power levels had been restored, nobody had mentioned the problems anymore and dinner had been a relaxing affair. Jack sent everybody home as soon as they were done and Owen, Gwen and Tosh were gone quickly, on their way to a pub. Jack had turned the invitation to tag along down, knowing he had to confront Ianto before he got a chance to sneak down into the basement under the pretence of checking something in the archives. He watched Ianto clean up the boardroom and then asked for a last round of coffee.

Ianto didn't just bring that into Jack's office a few minutes later, but also set down a plate with biscuits. "If there's nothing else you need, I'd like to go home, Captain," he said.

Jack looked at him. Really looked at him. He ignored the way the suit hid the slim body from sight that Jack had fantasized about every now and again when he'd been alone and horny. He ignored the long legs that he'd imagined would wrap around his hips so perfectly, the tight arse that distracted him from work sometimes, the shy smile that was just the right amount of wicked and the blue eyes that sometimes challenged him and other times regarded him with indifference.

It was easy to see once Jack had switched off the part of him that wanted to bend Ianto over his desk, wanted to bed him gently and tenderly in his bunker, wanted to rip off clothes and muss hair and bruise lips with his own. Now, he saw the dark shadows under Ianto's eyes, the pasty white of his skin that had nothing to do with the delicious paleness the Welsh were privy to. He noticed the way the suit was too big in some places as if Ianto had lost weight since he'd bought it. He noticed exhaustion and worry and guilt in Ianto's eyes. This was a man betraying him, lying to him and leading him on without letting him cash in – but this certainly wasn't a man who did it out of malice or greed or insanity. This man loved the girl in the basement. He loved Lisa Hallett. Maybe he had no idea he was being misled, manipulated. Or maybe he'd decided not to know. This was a man who, for someone dressed so properly, was coming apart at the seams.

"Captain?" Ianto asked, confusion showing on his young face.

Jack got up, walked around the desk. He leaned into Ianto's personal space, watching Ianto's eyes widen slightly, noticing how he tensed but didn't move away. Jack wondered if Ianto would let him touch him, run his hands over his body, underneath his clothes. Would he let him kiss him, strip him … fuck him? Would he let Jack do all that just to make sure he was happy with him and oblivious? There was a part of Jack – a dark part that he tried to suppress – that wanted to find out. Instead, he said, "She's gone."

Ianto smiled. "Who is gone, sir?"

Jack looked at him steadily, let him see that he knew, that he was disappointed and angry and insulted. That she was really, really gone.

Ianto's smile died slowly. "Who is gone, sir?" he asked again, his voice breaking on the last words. Then he whirled around and ran. Jack looked after him, knowing exactly where Ianto was going. Slowly, he followed him.

He found Ianto standing at the conversion unit in the dim light coming from the lamp, cradling Lisa's upper body to his chest. Tears were running down his cheeks and silent sobs shook his frame.

Jack tucked his emotions away once again. Just for another hour or two. Just until he knew how this day would end. "You brought a Cyberwoman into my Hub and you thought I wouldn't notice?"

Ianto froze, standing still as a statue.

"Do you really think I'm that stupid, Ianto?"

When he spoke, Ianto's voice was monotone, calm … unnerving. "No, I just hoped you would be blind enough."

"Well, I wasn't."

"You killed her," Ianto whispered.

"I removed a potential threat."

"You killed her!"

Jack was ready when Ianto came charging for him, caught him and pinned him to the wall with Jack's hands wrapped around Ianto's wrists to hold him in place. Jack stared at Ianto intently, trying to make him understand while he struggled to hold onto him. "That girl was long gone. You probably think she was still alive but she wasn't. The Cyberbeing killed her, took over her brain and deleted her."

"Don't say that!" Ianto managed to push Jack away by sheer force of will and the right hook caught Jack across the jaw, knocking him to the floor. "You monster!" Ianto screamed. "You killed her!" He pinned Jack to the floor and hit him again. Jack managed to grab him and flip them around. He pulled the syringe he'd taken from the autopsy bay from his trouser pocket and jammed it into Ianto's arm. Ianto hit his hand away but it was too late. The syringe was empty. "What did you do?" Ianto asked, fighting him, but his movements were already becoming sluggish.

Jack held him down. "I'm helping you."

"I don't need your help," Ianto replied and new tears welled up in his eyes. "Leave me alone." He sobbed. "You killed her."

"I'm sorry."

"You fucking bastard!"

"I'm so sorry," Jack whispered, brushing a hand through Ianto's hair until he fell asleep.

xxx

Jack was sitting on a chair beside Ianto's bed when he woke. He could pin-point the exact moment Ianto remembered. His face, when unguarded, was surprisingly expressive. Jack expected him to fight, to get up and hit him, but he didn't. Instead, he seemed to huddle into himself even more, hiding from his bright bedroom lights. Jack realized then that Ianto had known all along, on some subconscious level: he'd been played and played well. And Lisa had either been dead for months or trapped in her own body, her consciousness suppressed by the Cyberbeing. For that reason, Jack decided to ignore the Retcon pills in his coat pocket. He'd brought them, of course, because he couldn't be sure. Now he was. And he'd thought about what to do, thought long and hard. He'd dismissed execution from the start. Retcon had been the alternative to what he was planning on doing now. "Suspension, four weeks," he said. "I'll tell the others you have a family emergency. Nobody needs to know what happened. Take that time to grieve properly." He got up. "If you need to talk, I'm just a phone call away."

"There was a chance … I did what I had to do," Ianto whispered.

Jack put his hands on his hips. "So did I."

"I want to leave."

"Retcon. You would have to lose the memory of Torchwood and with it, the memory of Lisa. Does she deserve that?"

Ianto closed his eyes and Jack knew that he'd won. Ianto would stay and Jack would get the chance to make it better.

Nevertheless, he left Ianto a choice. "If you still feel like leaving in two weeks, let me know. I'll come and arrange everything." He headed for the bedroom door, stopped short and turned back to Ianto. "I don't give third chances, Ianto. Don't screw this up." With that, he left.

END

08/12


	2. Patching Up

**Patching Up**

_Series: _Stitches

_Word Count: _~ 1.300

_Summary: _"Don't talk then. Show me instead. How you feel."

_Characters: _Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones

_Pairing: _Jack/Ianto

_Rating: _PG-13

_Spoiler: Cyberwoman_

_Setting:_ sometime in series one

_Warnings: _Violence

_Author's Note: _Written for the torchwood_fest Winter Exchange. Rudika gave five prompts, I took three and made a series out of them. This is Part Two for the prompt _It's not that Jack can't sleep at night - it's that he doesn't want to_. Part One was Coming Apart and you need to have read it.

_Beta: _larsinger29, who also helped me express the boys' feelings a bit better. Thank you!

_Disclaimer: _I'm not making money with this fanfic. The tv-show _Torchwood _and the characters appearing within it belong to their producers and creators. Any similarities to living or dead persons are purely coincidental and not intended.

xxx

It wasn't that Jack couldn't sleep at night. He didn't want to. His nightmares were persistent, following him around for decades and mixing with new trauma every chance they got. Sometimes, he tried to go to sleep, just to pretend to be normal for a little while, just to escape the long lonely nights at the Hub, but it always ended with him, sweaty and gasping for air in his small bed. Sometimes, he went out, got a drink, got a shag and returned to the Hub, but most of the nights, he stayed in and caught up on paperwork. His body didn't necessarily need sleep since he'd become immortal.

Ianto's on the other hand did. And since he'd returned to work a few days ago, he didn't get enough of it. Always on duty it seemed. Sometimes, like tonight, he surprised Jack by entering his office at one in the morning with a few forms to sign.

Jack slowly took the forms Ianto handed him. "You're not supposed to be here."

Ianto glanced at him, acknowledging the words but not answering.

Jack didn't let that put him off and he watched Ianto move some files around, tidying up Jack's desk. Even in the soft lights of his office, Jack could see the dark shadows lingering under Ianto's eyes, the way he held himself with hunched shoulders and ducked head. Jack pinched his lower lip between two fingers thoughtfully, not quite knowing if he should ask, if he had a right to after what had happened. But he couldn't help himself. "Ianto-"

"I'm fine, sir."

"You're not."

"I'd just like to get this done, sir", Ianto answered and added, "Please sign the forms so I can file them." Jack sighed and complied. Ianto gathered the paperwork up and headed for the door.

"Ianto," Jack said and waited for him to stop before he continued. "You didn't call me once during your suspension. Did you talk to anybody about what happened?"

Ianto turned around to him. "Who should I talk to, sir? The team? They don't even know that I hid her."

Jack folded his hands on his desk. "That's why _I_ offered to listen."

Ianto folded his arms over the folders, pressing them against his chest like a shield. "I don't need to talk, sir."

"Would you tell me if you did?"

Ianto ducked his head. "Probably not," he admitted and left.

Jack sighed. "I thought so."

xxx

Sometime later, Ianto's quiet voice startled Jack out of his work. "Coffee, sir?"

Jack nodded. He checked his watch. It was just before three in the morning and there was no way that Ianto had been home to sleep. Or at least take a nap. When Ianto set the mug down on Jack's desk, Jack grabbed his wrist.

Ianto raised his head, his blue eyes questioning. "Sir?"

"I was being serious. You can talk to me."

Ianto's eyes turned cold. "To her murderer?"

Jack swallowed. "I understand that you have problems expressing how you feel or feel scared to be so vulnerable, especially towards me."

"You understand," Ianto echoed, his voice as cold as his eyes and, with a hint of mockery, he added, "Thank you, sir." He wanted to turn away again but Jack held on to him.

"Don't talk then," he said, looking at Ianto earnestly. Ianto tilted his head in confusion. Jack explained, "Show me instead. How you feel."

Ianto shook his head with a nervous smile and straightened, Jack letting go of his wrist. "Sir?" His body tensed, though, ready to run, to destroy, to punish, to curl up and cry … Jack didn't know which. He just knew that Ianto was well aware of what Jack was offering, even though he pretended not to.

He got up and stepped around the desk. "No 'Sir', not right now." He stared at Ianto challengingly. "Do it."

Ianto shook his head and took a step back, avoiding Jack's eyes and folding his hands on his back.

Jack crossed his arms. "You talk or you express how you feel. There's no other choice here. I will suspend you again until you do one of these things." He sighed and tried to explain, "It's eating you up. You need to let your emotions out somehow."

"You're offering to let me hit you," Ianto said slowly.

Jack shrugged. "If it's that what you need. You can hit me. Or we could have sex if you want to." He didn't accompany these words with a flirty smile or a seductive voice like he'd imagined himself doing ever since Ianto had started flirting with him. It would have been for fun back then – now, everything was about need. Sex was just an option.

One Ianto didn't seem to consider, since he took a step back immediately. "I don't want to have sex with you," he said, shocked.

"Alright," Jack replied. Ianto turned to go but Jack's words let him freeze at the door. "It would be completely off the record. We would never talk about tonight again." Ianto turned back around to him. Jack shrugged. "I just want us to get along again and if you need to hit me a few times to get to that point, it's a small price." Jack could see that Ianto was thinking about it. And then, slowly, he stepped back towards Jack and pulled of his suit jacket. Jack straightened his shoulders and tensed his body, letting his hands hang down by his side – defenceless. Ianto visibly fought himself. He didn't look at him. Jack could see that Ianto was unable to do this … not without help. He swallowed and whispered, "I don't regret killing her."

The right hook didn't come as a surprise, but it hurt. As did the next three hits he took against his head before he fell to his knees. Ianto kicked him in the stomach and Jack doubled over.

"Come on," Ianto said. Jack coughed and looked up at him. Ianto stood there, pale and trembling, staring at him challengingly. "Come on!" Jack didn't know what Ianto wanted from him. Ianto's face twisted with rage and threw himself on Jack, pushing him to the floor and hitting his head against the concrete – hard. Black spots exploded before Jack's eyes. "Fight back!" Ianto yelled. "It's your turn!" He grabbed Jack's collar and then his hands were against Jack's windpipe, squeezing. "It's your turn," Ianto panted. Jack gagged and wheezed and the thoughts were running around his head: he couldn't defend himself, this was Ianto's payback and Jack had offered so he'd have to take it ... but Ianto couldn't find out, shouldn't find out about Jack's immortality and Jack had never thought it would come to this ...

Before he could think it through properly, though, his instincts took over and he had flipped them around and pinned Ianto to the floor in a matter of seconds, his hands fisted in Ianto's shirt and his body holding him down. Ianto didn't fight him, he just closed his eyes. And with cold dread, Jack understood that Ianto was waiting for him to hit back, to punish him. That he'd only hit him, pushed him and strangled him because he wanted to provoke him. Because he wanted to be punished.

And it broke Jack's heart.

"It's your turn," Ianto whispered. Jack's hands brushed through Ianto's hair, one down his cheek, trying to calm him down. Ianto stared at him intently. "Take your turn."

"I am," Jack replied and then he kissed him. Their lips remained closed but the kiss wasn't chaste. Jack lingered, renewing the kiss several times with small pecks. Ianto's hands grabbed his arms, trying to push him away but Jack shook his head. "It's my turn," he whispered against Ianto's lips, "and I forgive you."

"Why?"

Jack stared at him. "Because somebody has to."

END

08/12


	3. Stitching Together

**Stitching Together**

_Series: _Stitches

_Word Count: _~ 900

_Summary: _This was different, wasn't just a shag he picked up in a pub or a colleague he wanted to screw just because they were pretty and damn what they thought of each other. It was Ianto who took good care of him. And of his coat.

_Characters: _Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones

_Pairing: _Jack/Ianto

_Rating: _R

_Spoiler: Cyberwoman_

_Setting: _sometime in series one

_Author's Note: _Written for the torchwood_fest Winter Exchange. Rudika gave five prompts, I took three and made a series out of them. This is Part Three for the prompt I_anto always liked Jack's coat. And Jack rather appreciated Ianto's suit. Everything went on from there_. Part One was Coming Apart and Part Two Patching Up and you need to have read them.

_Beta: _larsinger29, thank you!

_Disclaimer: _I'm not making money with this fanfic. The tv-show _Torchwood _and the characters appearing within it belong to their producers and creators. Any similarities to living or dead persons are purely coincidental and not intended.

xxx

Fingers curled under Jack's collar and lifted the heavy wool from his shoulders, exposing him to the cool air of the Hub. Jack sighed and made an effort to relax after being tense and on edge all evening. He watched Ianto hang the coat on a hook in a corner of Jack's office, signalling the end of a long day.

Jack dropped into his chair and took the offered glass of scotch, sipping and watching Ianto run his hands down the length of the coat, checking for damage. Jack let him, appreciating that Ianto realized how much the coat meant to him. He was happy to watch him anyway: the suit jacket hanging over the back of a chair, the shirt sleeves pushed half-way up his arms, the trousers melting against strong legs and a tempting arse. And Jack really was tempted … very. Every single time him and Ianto were alone like this on the end of a day with everyone else at home and the Hub to themselves. And every evening, Jack reminded himself that their relationship as it was now was precarious enough – considering he'd been the one to kill Ianto's girlfriend and Ianto had betrayed him – and he shouldn't risk it just to scratch an itch. As big an itch as Ianto Jones was.

"There's a hole," Ianto said and and turned to Jack with a questioning frown.

Jack sighed. "Jumped over a fence to reach the origin of the Rift activity. Gwen ripped her shirt. You should have heard her curse Torchwood because, apparently, it was brand new." Ianto chuckled and took the coat, getting a small pouch with thread and needle from the top drawer of Jack's desk. Jack shook his head. "You don't need to do this now. Go home."

"I don't mind, sir." He settled in the chair standing in front of Jack's desk while Jack checked his mobile. Gwen had texted him to tell him that she'd arrived home without any problems. And to stop nagging. He couldn't help himself sometimes, though. Just like he couldn't help thinking about Ianto.

It was like a magnetic pull, unstoppable once Jack realized that he and Ianto were becoming closer again, sharing graveyard shifts and Weevil hunts and paperwork. The others didn't notice. Jack liked that. It gave him access to something nobody else had. To Ianto Jones. It was a natural progression in their new-found relationship, in Ianto's healing and Jack's learning to come to terms with the betrayal. It wasn't a big surprise that they found themselves smiling at each other over forms that needed to be signed, laughing about a hunt gone right or Ianto sleeping in Jack's bed when it was too late for him to go home. Usually, even with their twisted past, Jack wouldn't have a problem taking charge, pushing Ianto up against a wall and kissing him until he couldn't breathe, but this was different, wasn't just a shag he picked up in a pub or a colleague he wanted to screw just because they were pretty and damn what they thought of each other. It was Ianto who took good care of him. And of his coat.

He watched Ianto expertly fixing the hole. "How are you, Ianto?" he asked earnestly, like he did every evening.

"Fine, sir," Ianto replied, the answer as well-worn as Jack's question. He looked at him and a smile tugged at the corners of his lips. "Really."

"Good."

Ianto put the thread and needle away and checked the mended spot. "Fixed."

Jack got up when Ianto hung the coat up again. "Thank you."

"It was nothing." He turned to Jack and grinned shyly. "It's an antique. You have to take good care of antiques."

Jack let a bit of flirting show in his voice and eyes. "Admit it, you just love the coat."

"I already told you I did." Ianto ducked his head and then looked at Jack again. "A lot of things were a lie back then but that wasn't." There was not a lot of space between them already, but Ianto took another step closer.

Jack hesitated only for the fraction of a second, then he put his his hands on Ianto's hips, relieved that Ianto didn't pull away. "I'm rather fond of your suits – that wasn't a lie either," he said softly. Ianto's body heat bled through the fabric: soft and smooth shirt cotton against Jack's finger tips and the rough wool of expensive trousers against his palms.

"I know," Ianto said. "It's the reason I wore them when I started out here." He gave a nervous smile and swallowed visibly before he whispered, "It's the reason I'm still wearing them." And then he leaned forward and kissed Jack. The kiss was chaste, fed by insecurity and curiosity alike, and all Jack could do was return it and hope that this was a good idea. Jack's hands slid around Ianto's waist and pressed against the small of his back, pulling him closer.

Ianto always liked Jack's coat. And Jack rather appreciated Ianto's suit. Everything went on from there.

END

08/12


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